Never felt the need for it?! Are you serious? Ok, that does it. You need to leave the room. You're making the rest of us look bad.

By the time I got to Survival mode I already went through TLoU like 5 times on every other difficulty and since I knew what to expect and do I didn't see myself needing the noise vision thing. It wasn't made available so even if I wanted to use it I just had to keep pushing forward and take the risk.

The sections with heavy combat weren't easy and the stealth parts took a ton of patience, but I did it in the end.

Ahh. See, I was coming at it from the viewpoint of you playing it one time, and not using listening mode. I sometimes forget about the goobers who play games over and over again. This game, especially, seems an odd one to play more than once. It's just so dark and dreary. I wouldn't want to go through that again. I'll presume you did it to get trophies.

Ahh. See, I was coming at it from the viewpoint of you playing it one time, and not using listening mode. I sometimes forget about the goobers who play games over and over again. This game, especially, seems an odd one to play more than once. It's just so dark and dreary. I wouldn't want to go through that again. I'll presume you did it to get trophies.

What can I say, I like to get the most of my games and I enjoy putting my skill to the test with a game I'm enjoying.

I did have to wait a while to do other playthroughs with how heavy the experience usually is. Hell! I'm still impressed with how they managed to make the combat feel dirty and desperate. That caught me off guard at first.

Oh! I thought it was simply terrific. Almost completely pitch perfect. I mean, even though I died probably 500+ times (I may be underestimating, there were 2 sections of the game that it literally took me multiple nights of play to get past) I never thought it was unfair, just that I suck. I also think the actual gameplay complemented the tone damn near perfectly.

I also thought the ending was predictable, but I mean that in an extremely satisfying way. Like, this is the only way that would even make sense for it to end.

Altogether a great piece of storytelling and gaming. I hesitate to call it particularly "fun" the way I'd hesitate to call playing something I suck at for hours on end, like say golf, "fun". But it's certainly a triumph of a game that I will probably never pick up again simply due to the frustration level it inspired as I twisted my fingers into pretzels trying to complete it. (If I'm going to do something I KNOW I suck at for stretches that long, I'll stick to golf so at least I get outside for a bit.)

I can certainly see why it is being called one of the best games of the year, and I certainly wouldn't strenuously disagree. I wouldn't say it was MY favorite game of the year for reasons already mentioned. :-D

Totally agree with your points, Dave. I've been playing it a bit again, and I'm actually enjoying it a lot more now that I've figured out the rules and "proper" way to play. I finally understand how the clickers work, and they aren't nearly as random as I thought before. I still maintain that the opening levels are way too tough and put you into pretty unfair "gotcha" moments, but it really does level out towards the Pittsburgh sections. I ended up cheesing the AI quite a bit more than I'm used to in a modern stealth game (Gee, there's four dead bodies in this room, maybe I should go in and see wh... *shank*), but it's still a uniquely intense game.

I think those brutally difficult opening sections though serve both a tone and gameplay purpose. From a tone standpoint it let's you know just how difficult SURVIVAL is in this universe - I died on the OPENING SECTION for crying out loud before the title of the game even appeared. That sent the message loud and clear.

From a gameplay standpoint it let's you know that the game is going to absolutely punish you for not taking it seriously and learning the rules. As frustrating as those sections were, I think they totally work on both levels.

I'd say this game is a tremendous example of marrying mechanics to tone, something that I don't think a whole lot of games actually bother to do.

EDIT: I say this of course pretty sure I will never play this game again. I can admire the gameplay choices from afar without punishing myself. :-)

Oh, I agree. The tone and gameplay work beautifully in this game, probably better than any other in recent memory. Those first clicker sections were maddening, but then they let you play in their little mini-sandbox and everything starts to flow and feel amazingly organic.

Oh, I agree. The tone and gameplay work beautifully in this game, probably better than any other in recent memory. Those first clicker sections were maddening, but then they let you play in their little mini-sandbox and everything starts to flow and feel amazingly organic.

Right on.

In short, my review is: "This is the best game I will never ever play again."